Commentary on Religion, Secular Humanism, Opera and Whatever Else Happens to Be in My Mind

Month: February 2015

While American Christianity seems to be flooding the market with bad art that will turn a quick buck, this seems to be the exception to the rule in terms of global fundamentalism, where the trend is towards violent iconoclasm.

This past weekend, an awards show took place in Hollywood bestowing honors and awards on those movies that were so richly deserving of being recognized for their artistic contributions. I speak, of course, of the Golden Raspberry Awards, the “anti-Oscar” ceremony for bad movies. In a move that surprised no one whose been paying even the slightest attention to pop culture, Kirk “Banana fallacy” Cameron’s underwhelming tour de force Saving Christmas swept the Razzies, winning four Golden Raspberries: Worst Film, Worst Actor, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Combo (the combo being Kirk and his over-sized ego).

I see that a Brazilian traditionalist blog linked to one of my earlier posts on the dynamics of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic church, which was unexpected to say the least. It was linked in the context of discussing whether married priests in the Roman rite would be a positive development, which has led me to write down my own thoughts on the matter of married priests.

One of the major themes in the pontificate of Benedict XVI was the notion of “the dictatorship of relativism” in which society recognizes no objective moral truths and each person is free to define his or her own truth. The dictatorship of relativism is supposedly the result of the secularization of formerly Christian societies that exalt human reason and passing intellectual fads over timeless religious truths. Supposedly the only thing that is taboo in the dictatorship of relativism is proclaiming that objective morality exists. This line of thinking was once quite attractive to me, but I became disillusioned with it once I realized that for conservotrad Catholics, the only things that are always wrong in all times and all places are abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and pre-marital sex (slavery, racism, and the odd genocide are okay, as long as your group isn’t affected). However, after the Hobby Lobby decision, I now realize that the real dictatorship of relativity is found in the demand for so-called “religious liberty.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said (or is supposed to have said) that, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.” Regardless of who actually made this statement, it’s a good rule of thumb to live by. Unfortunately, it seems that Americans are increasingly demanding the right to have their own facts, even if they fly in the face of reality.

Yesterday, the always excellent Bill Lindsey asked why the business community in Arkansas didn’t come out against that state’s sweeping anti-LGBT law as it did in other states where similar legislation was proposed (see http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2015/02/quote-for-day-itsnotover-backlash-is.html). I wrote a response to this question on the post itself, but I want to expand my thoughts on this matter into a full post.